Thursday, March 5, 2009

In a recent article , talking bout the national real estate market (a real oxymoron since there is no "nationl" real estate market) the Realty Times staff quoted the National Association Realtors,

Buyer are still hesitating on whether to enter to market, but the National Association of Realtors estimates "the impact of the stimulus package and lower interest rates on the housing market to be about 900,000 additional home sales in 2009 compared to conditions before the stimulus package."

Though the stimulus package makes buying a home attractive everywhere in the country, in a market like ours, the impact for homebuyers is even greater than it may be in areas like Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Diego & Manhattan where the spike in prices was very high, and the price reductions over the past two years have been so large.

In a market like Philadelphia, the impact of the stimulus is even greater. A $250,000 property here can be a pretty nice property. And a buyer using an FHA mortgage with a 3% down payment, essentially recieves their down payment back from the stimulus package $8,000 tax credit. If thy ask the buyer for a 6% seller assist with their closing costs, they can purchase the home with little or no cash out of their pocket. In normal times a pretty good deal. In a market that has seen limited price reductions in the past 2 years (only an average of 3% from the highest point of the real estate boom) it becomes even more attractive. After all that price stability means that your long term financial benefits are pretty much "money in the bank" . Combine our moderate prices with low interest rates, and an attractive deal becomes even more of a no-brainer.

So if you can buy a home, now is the time to do it. If you can't buy a home, now is the time to find out what you need to do so that you will be able to do so soon. Good Luck and Hapy House Hunting.

1 comments:

An analysis of the current economic crisis we are all unfortunately facing but looked at from a slightly different perspective.

This analysis looks at past banking crises and how they have effected various aspects of the economy.

It is titled The Banking Crisis - Where are we now? (follow the link should you be interested) and has particularly interesting points about how the previous banking crises has effected assets including property prices.

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A real estate professional since 1971, I am CEO of Pennsylvania's Largest CENTURY 21 Firm, CENTURY 21 Advantage Gold. With 10 locations serving Pennsylvania and New Jersey, we always work to provide Professional Service with a Personal Touch. We view our job as "helping people to make good decisions"
I live and work in Philadelphia, spending time in Los Angeles to recharge whenever I can. I also am CEO of SMMI, speak internationally and teach social media and technology with an awesome team of forward thinking people including my son Hal.